After the Leeds game, I was away on international duty. When we got back to Manchester, I sat down with the boss, Steve McClaren and Gary Neville to sort things out. That meeting, at least, was out of the public eye, which I’m sure helped us put things straight. After everybody had had their say, the gaffer summed it up:
‘Let’s forget this now. Let’s get on with things, eh?’
I was genuinely relieved. The boss was the last person in the world I wanted to fall out with. Not just because he’s scary when he loses his rag; not just because it could mean me missing games. As far as my football career was concerned, the gaffer was the man who’d made everything possible for me: from day one of my time at Manchester United, he was the father figure in what had become a second family for me. Old Trafford had been home now for almost as long as Mum and Dad’s had before it. No matter how angry or hurt I might be about how he was treating me, I understood everything the boss did was motivated by his wanting to do the best for United. And I knew how much he’d done for me personally, as a player and a person, since I’d arrived at Old Trafford as a boy. Maybe how important my relationship with the gaffer was to me was the reason feelings ran so high.
That afternoon, after training, I was shopping at the Trafford Centre. As I came away from the shops to get back in the car, my phone rang. It was the boss:
‘Where the hell are you?’
‘Eh?’
‘Where the hell are you?’
‘I’m in my car.’
‘Don’t lie to me. You’re in Barcelona, aren’t you?’
I nearly laughed out loud:
‘I’m in my car. I’m just driving out of the Trafford Centre.’
The gaffer wasn’t having any of it:
‘My mate has seen you at Barcelona airport.’
What could I say? I described the car park at the Trafford Centre, told him which shops I’d been in. There was a long silence:
‘OK. Goodbye.’
I found out later that, five minutes before he rang me, the boss had rung Gary to find out where I was and tell him what he’d heard. Because of what had been talked about at the meeting earlier that same morning, Gary had put the phone down and just thought to himself:
‘Dave, after all that’s gone on, please don’t be in Spain.’
It was such a weird sting in the tale. I couldn’t believe we’d had the conversation. The boss knows people all over Manchester, knows everything that’s going on with the players. People must tell him things they say they’ve seen or heard all the time: someone had just told him I’d got off a plane in Barcelona. The problem with those stories is that they must really wind the boss up, whether they’re true or not, which doesn’t help me or whoever else the stories are about. I don’t think I could have lived my life better from a professional point of view: looking after myself, being careful about things like drinking and staying out late. When I went down to London to see family and friends, I never let the travelling get in the way of my job. For a game on a Saturday, Wednesday evening would be the absolute latest I’d ever be driving back to Manchester. The rumours, though, which had led to the row I hoped we’d just seen the back of, had made the gaffer believe I was up and down the motorway every other day. He wasn’t annoyed with me for the sake of it – I knew that – but because he genuinely believed the life I led away from football was interfering with what really mattered: winning games for United. And nothing I could say could convince him he was wrong. I could do something, though, to try and set things straight: play.
We were flying. The World Club Championship had been a break from the intensity of the Premiership and I think we came back feeling really strong. I won my place in the team back after the Leeds game and, between then and the end of the season, we drew two games and won the rest in the League. We finished champions, 18 points ahead of Arsenal, and the gap at the top said it all. We’d only lost three games all year and nobody else had been able to live with that. Obviously, going to Brazil had meant we couldn’t defend the FA Cup. The season’s biggest disappointment, as it turned out, was that we didn’t defend the Champions League either. Our experience in Europe meant we’d learned how to get through the group phase even if we lost the odd game or didn’t play at our best in others. Once you get to the knockout stages, though, it’s different: real cup football and against some of the best teams in the world. In the quarter-finals in 2000, we were drawn against Real Madrid.
The first leg at the Santiago Bernabeu, we drew 0–0. They played some great football but we had the chances to win – you always get chances against Real – and played well. An away goal that night in Spain would have made all the difference. As it was we were really looking forward to getting them back to Old Trafford. We thought we could beat them. So did our supporters. So did the press. Real Madrid didn’t. This was before the days of Zidane, Figo and Ronaldo but Real had great players – I think the boss said he thinks that Raul is the best there is anywhere in the world – and they scored great goals in Manchester and beat us before we really got going. There was no shame in losing to them. They went on to win the competition after all. But we were shattered. We had our chances but didn’t take them.
It was a little like the first half of our game in Madrid in 2003: they had this spell, for fifteen minutes after half-time at Old Trafford, when everything they did seemed to come off and we couldn’t get near them. I remember their left-sided midfield player, Redondo, the Argentinian, did this unbelievable dragback to take the ball past Henning Berg. He crossed and Raul just had a tap-in. It was brilliant. We’d lost one goal in the first half, then Raul got his two and, before even an hour of the game had gone – a game that we’d never felt out of – we were 3–0 down. We came back in the last half hour: I scored, Scholesy got a penalty, but they held on and we were out.
It didn’t make up for being beaten but I was pleased about my goal that night. I’d skipped away from Roberto Carlos and arrowed one into the top corner. I’ve played against him a few times, for United against Real and for England against Brazil. Everybody talks about how great Roberto Carlos is going forward but, that night especially, he proved he could defend too. He’s the best left-back in football. People say that he leaves space behind him because he bombs forward all the time, but the bloke can give people five-and ten-yard starts and still get back to get his tackle in. I always loved games against him: if it was Roberto Carlos, then it was either Real Madrid or Brazil. You knew you and your team-mates were up against just about the best in the world.
After going out of Europe, the important thing was not to sit around feeling sorry for ourselves, however desperate we’d been to prove ourselves by winning the European Cup again. I think one of our strengths, and something that always set United apart, is how we reacted to a defeat. It’s a special spirit: during games, the team doesn’t know when it’s beaten. And when we did lose a game, however big the disappointment, you knew everybody would be back next match to make up for it. It’s the same spirit that fires up United teams to go on the kind of long unbeaten runs, like in 1999/2000, that win championships. The gaffer has a lot to do with it. The coaching staff at United, as far back as Nobby Stiles and Eric Harrison, have always been able to inspire that attitude, too. Even in youth cup and ‘A’ team football, we always seemed to have the ability to come back from low points, in the course of individual games and after we’d suffered defeats.
You could call it stubbornness. We finished 1999/2000 as Premiership Champions. The unwillingness to settle for second best, that intensity and desire: they’re in the make-up of the club. At United, a professional attitude ran through everything we did. Whatever the secret was, I think it was particularly strong, particularly obvious, amongst the group that grew up together in the nineties: me, the Nevilles, Paul Scholes, Ryan Giggs and Nicky Butt. Roy Keane used to wind us up, laughing about the ‘Class of ’92’, but, of all people, he’s the kind of player who recognises when the other players in a team are up for the battle.
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There was a sense of togetherness amongst us that I don’t think you could ever buy or recreate. It grew over time because we’d all been at United together for so long. We had complete faith in each other. None of us got carried away as individuals. The last thing we’d ever do was let one another down. And one thing was always the same: we lived for playing football – playing football for Manchester United. In recent years, especially since we missed out on winning any trophies in 2002, some pundits and even some United supporters started talking about the time when it might be best to break up the ‘Class of ’92’. Obviously, I’ve now had to leave that group behind, but as for the others, I genuinely believe the club would risk losing something – a spirit, a United spirit – that’s been very important to its success. It’s something not many clubs have; and it’s something that might be impossible for Manchester United ever to replace.
9
The Germans
‘Go out and enjoy yourselves…We’re a better team.’
It doesn’t seem to matter that football is a team game. When things go wrong, someone always has to take the blame. Take England, for example: in the World Cup, it was me in 1998 and Dave Seaman in 2002. At the European Championships in 2000, Phil Neville was the player who was made scapegoat for us not matching up to the public’s expectations. For the media and for some supporters, it seems there always has to be a hero or a villain. I’m not saying that people don’t have every right to have their opinions about the England team. Sometimes I wonder, though, whether they realise that what they say or write about us does get through. Footballers may tell you they don’t read the papers or listen to the radio but, believe me, we know when we’re getting stick and, however strong we try to be, it leaves a mark on our confidence and attitude.
Of course, picking out – or picking on – an individual isn’t just something that happens when it comes to international football. There was a spell in the autumn of 2002 when United weren’t doing as well as we knew we should be. There were all sorts of reasons for that, to do with injuries, suspensions and the team as a whole taking a dip in confidence and concentration. I was having my own problems, which I’ll come to later on. Some people seemed to decide it was all Ryan Giggs’ fault. Nobody in the dressing room, players or staff, saw it that way. But a section of the Old Trafford crowd weren’t happy and, naturally, the papers and the radio phone-ins picked up on that. It came as all the more of a surprise to the players, and I’m sure to Ryan himself, because United supporters have been fantastic down the years, and especially loyal and encouraging to the home-grown boys.
As soon as it became a big story, most United fans got behind Giggsy. He might have been experiencing a dip in form, but no one with any idea about football thinks he’s anything but a world-class player. And, more to the point, no one with any feel for United would even begin to question an amazing career at the club just because the team as a whole wasn’t firing like it should. I wouldn’t, for a minute, say supporters don’t have the right to speak their mind about United; after all, they pay the players’ wages and those of everybody else working at Old Trafford. The players have to live up to the fans’ highest expectations of them, it’s their job. Having a go at one player like that, though, I don’t understand. It just makes things more difficult for that player and for the rest of the team. In general, I’d say the Old Trafford crowd is more patient than most. They know the game and they know the players. Real United fans knew Giggsy would be back flying, as he proved during the last six months of that season, on our way to winning the League.
When it comes to England, ever since I’ve been involved at least, there’s always been that same tendency to lump everything onto one bloke’s shoulders when the team’s seen to fall short. When you think that we’re representing our country, not just our clubs, on international duty – and that millions of supporters are watching on television every time we kick a ball at a major tournament – you realise that being the one to carry the can is even more painful and humiliating. I remember, when we were younger, some of us would turn up to prepare for England games and half joke about who we thought would be to blame this time if we lost. Looking back now, it wasn’t even half funny. I think players being made scapegoats didn’t just undermine the particular lads who were singled out for the stick. I think it held back the England team as a whole. And maybe it still does.
There’s always pressure on the England players and I understand that: I’m patriotic, too. I’m an England fan and I want us to do well as a country. But in World Cups and European Championships, I think that pressure sometimes makes players scared to try things, makes them nervous about taking risks and really expressing themselves. It’s a fear of failing and the memory of what happened to me in 1998, for example, or Phil Neville at Euro 2000 is in the back of some players’ minds. Look at Brazil: they’re relaxed whatever’s happening. I remember, during the World Cup quarter-final in 2002, looking across the pitch – this was while we were 1–0 up – and Ronaldo was having a laugh and a joke with the referee.
Of course, none of the Brazilian lads are going to go back to Brazil to play their club football the following season: maybe that helps them not worry about what might happen if things go wrong. England players know what kind of stick they can get and I really believe that being nervous about it holds some of us back. Even though I’ve been through it myself, it still crossed my mind once I’d got home after the World Cup in 2002: what would have been said and written about me if I’d missed that penalty against Argentina? I could be wrong. It’s not something I’ve talked about with the other lads. I just have this sense that, in the really big games, a fear of failure sometimes stops us turning in the kind of performances we’re capable of and which the fans want to see.
For whatever reason, Euro 2000 didn’t go the way any of us would have wanted it to. Phil Neville took some of the blame for that. Kevin Keegan came in for a lot of criticism too. But with the team spirit that Kevin had created since coming in as England manager, we all felt we were in it together. And that meant all of us taking the responsibility for England getting knocked out so early on. Although we’d had a difficult time in qualifying, we still went off to the tournament expecting to do well. Before our arrival in Belgium and Holland, our training camp in France was much more relaxed than the one organised by Glenn Hoddle before the World Cup two years before. By the time the tournament began, everybody was really excited, and looking forward to getting started.
If you look at the opening twenty minutes of our first game that summer against Portugal in Eindhoven, you’d have to say we were in exactly the right shape and the right state of mind. They were an excellent team, with world-class players like Luis Figo and Rui Costa, and they put us under pressure straight away but, every time we broke upfield we looked like we were going to score. I sent a couple of crosses in: Paul Scholes got on the end of the first one and Steve McManaman put in the second. We were 2–0 up before any of us had had time to feel how the game might be going. To be honest, we were surprised by the position we found ourselves in. We should have gone on to win the game but, almost straight away, Figo ran through and blasted one into the top corner and everything changed. Everything started to go wrong. They equalised just before half-time. Michael Owen went off injured, then Steve McManaman too. And the Portuguese got the winner in the second half.
For a neutral, it had been a great game. For us, though, and for the England supporters, it was really disappointing. To have been playing as well as we had early on, and to have scored two good goals but then let the game slip away, was unbelievably frustrating. The fact that we’d played some good football and been beaten by an excellent team didn’t ease the pressure at all. Even though I thought I’d had a decent game, I felt really down at the end: losing 3–2 wasn’t the start we’d been hoping for at all. For those few minutes after the final whistle I was off in a world of my own. Perhaps I should have had my head up, steeling myself, because there was trouble wait
ing for me as I trudged off the pitch.
Victoria had travelled over to Holland for the game. She’d obviously come to support me, but I remember feeling nervous about that before kick-off. We’d been told that our families would be seated in a secure, enclosed area but that hadn’t happened. I looked across to see her in the crowd and, to be honest, I was worried about how safe Victoria was going to be. She was with her dad and they had trouble before and after the match, getting pushed around and abused by people who were calling themselves England supporters. She’ll never go to a game like that, in those kinds of circumstances, ever again.
Some of those same idiots were waiting for me, too, when I came off the pitch. As I walked off towards the tunnel, after we’d been to applaud the England fans, there were five or six blokes, in seats behind the dugouts. They started having a go, first about me, then about Victoria. And then – the most horrible thing – they were shouting this stuff about Brooklyn. It still makes me feel sick to my stomach thinking about what they were saying. I was so angry; but I bit my lip. What can you do? You’re powerless to stop it, aren’t you? I just stuck my middle finger up towards them and headed straight down to the changing room.
Since France 98, people having a go at me, inside and outside football grounds, had become something that happened so often that I’d almost learned to live with it. It always hurt but I got better at blocking it out, I suppose. What really shocked me was the abuse since Victoria and I had got married and started a family; instead of this earning us a little privacy and respect, it seemed to have made things worse. You’d have to ask the people who abused us why they did it. Envy? Contempt? Nothing better to do? All I do know is that, on that particular afternoon in Eindhoven, after I’d spent ninety minutes running round for the England team and we hadn’t got a good result to show for it, my guard was definitely down. What those blokes said hurt and disgusted me and, because I was so shocked by it, I couldn’t help but react.
David Beckham: My Side Page 20
